[SCR Blog] Matt Brownlie Is Daniel Johnston, Beginning Tonight

In the unlikely event that you haven t heard about this before now, yep, the title there is pretty much true. Tonight (Wed., December 2nd) up at DiverseWorks,

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, Dec 2, 2009

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In the unlikely event that you haven't heard about this before now, yep, the title there is pretty much true. Tonight (Wed., December 2nd) up at DiverseWorks, The Catastrophic Theatre -- several members of which theater-going folk will probably recognize from the sadly-departed Infernal Bridegroom Productions -- is staging a "preview" of its new play, Life is Happy and Sad, which features none other than Bring Back the Guns frontman, awesome songwriter, and all-round cool guy Matt Brownlie in his first acting role.

Brownlie's playing quirky/strange fellow songwriter/musician (and artist) Daniel Johnston in his earlier, college-dwelling years, in a play TCT co-overlord Jason Nodler built around a never-before-heard tape Johnston created and sent to a friend. I haven't heard/seen it, unfortunately, but apparently the tape consisted of the youthful Johnston recording a "conversation" of his own personal thoughts & feelings, plus whatever songs he wanted to share, for his friend, and it sounds like a pretty intriguing glimpse into the man's mind.

The backstory to the whole thing's pretty neat, as well -- check out Joe Mathlete's excellent writeup for the details on that. And I'm told the second part of the play (the first part is a big monologue by "Johnston"/Brownlie) features local glam revivalists Roky Moon & Bolt as, well, the band in the thing, so that's no bad news, either.

In short, I'm hearing good things all around about this. Go, go, go. Tonight's preview costs $50 and includes refreshments & a private party with the cast and crew, and if you'd rather just see the play itself, it'll be running at DW December 3-5, 9-12, and 16-19, all for pay-what-you-can admission.